by John Harvey
The minister went on the alert, fearing she was breaking down. ‘Forgive me, Sally. Would you like something? Tea, coffee?’
‘Nothing, thank you. Last night I dreamed of the trooper. Why did he do it, Reverend? Was he evil?’
‘I’m not sure I believe in evil, Sally. It may be only a theological concept.’
‘My doctor says some people are explosions waiting to happen. Do you believe that about the trooper?’
The minister let out his breath. ‘I’m going through a crisis of my own, Sally, so I’ll tell you exactly what I believe. I’m amazed that God miswires so many of us. Even the brain of a genius is out of kilter. Brains that work right belong to mediocre folks. Like me, Sally. Maybe like you.’
She might not have heard him. ‘My doctor says the trooper’s manhood was threatened when Jack didn’t show respect.’
The minister nodded. ‘We put a young fellow in a uniform, give him a gun and expect the best. Occasionally we get the worst.’
Sally half heard the words. She had an itch down below and, as if a child again, gave it a solid scratch through her thin dress. ‘If God made us, Reverend, shouldn’t he share the blame for the bad we do? Couldn’t he at least give me my husband back?’
For moments the minister saw her as a child, which intimidated him, for he believed that the enormous questions children ask weigh as much as the world. ‘I don’t have an answer, Sally, and I don’t think anyone else does, though they may pretend they do.’
‘Do you have any answers at all?’
With a profound sadness, he shook his head.
STORY IDEA . . .
Twin girls, not yet a year old, are asleep in their cribs. A boy, nearly three, is at play in his room. Downstairs at the breakfast table a man in a business suit says that being married is being manacled; his wife, wearing a stained robe, says, ‘You can leave any time you want.’
He says that marriage interferes with his life; she says, ‘Do you want to take the kids, or should I keep them?’
He soaks his gaze in his coffee and says, ‘I’m incarcerated. A life sentence.’
She commiserates. ‘Poor darling. You know I’d do anything for you.’
‘That’s sweet of you, real sweet,’ he says sarcastically and leaves for work.
When he returns that evening, the house is dark except for a single light burning in the kitchen, where his wife, still in her robe, sits immobile. His coffee cup is where he had left it.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ he shouts. ‘Where are the kids?’
Looking up with blasted eyes and blood on her robe, she says, ‘You’re free.’
ELSA WEST
‘Why the hell did she send that to me?’ Robert said. ‘She’s weird, you know that.’
Marion returned the typescript to him. ‘But if I had to guess, I’d say she was telling you what a woman, any woman, is capable of.’
They were lunching at Locke-Ober. Each had strict dietary habits and was eating lightly, Caesar salad for Marion and smoked salmon for Robert. Robert said, ‘But why would she want to write a thing like that? It has nothing to do with her life. And it certainly doesn’t touch mine.’
‘Are you sure? Maybe she wants to do you in and she’s warning you. Don’t smile. I’m half serious.’
Robert’s gaze, skirting her, went to other tables, to anyone who might be looking. He liked being seen with Marion, for much about her was still eye-catching. ‘You’re being dramatic,’ he said.
‘Did you or did you not take advantage of her when she was of a tender age? Think hard. It may come to you.’
He sipped mineral water. ‘You’re being extraordinarily sarcastic, aren’t you?’
‘I’m concerned for your safety, darling.’
‘You may have noticed. I sleep with one eye open.’
‘Do you mind?’ She sampled salmon from his plate. ‘Mmmm. Good.’
Robert glowered. ‘You know I hate you doing that. It’s vulgar.’
‘That’s why I do it, darling. It gives me the upper hand, even if only for a moment.’
He smiled reluctantly. ‘You’re a worthy adversary, Marion. Married, we’d probably kill each other.’
‘Married, darling, we’d simply lose interest.’
With a sigh, he looked at his watch. ‘I’m running late.’ He signaled for the check.
Marion patted her lips with a napkin. ‘Will I see you tonight?’
‘If Elsa doesn’t shoot me.’
‘Her grandmother used a blade. So the odds are you won’t see it coming.’
Elsa peeked into the sun room and saw her uncle napping in a recliner, his head tipped back, his feet up. Approaching on tiptoes, she peered at his face in the hope of glimpsing something of her father. Heavy and expansive, the face smothered any token resemblance.
‘Uncle Edward!’
He woke with a snort and gave a start when he saw her, momentary fear in his eyes. ‘Elsa. How did you get in?’
‘No one answered the bell, so I let myself in. What happened to Juana?’
‘Who?’
‘The maid.’
‘I never met her. Marion let her go.’ Edward straightened the recliner and rubbed his eyes. ‘I seem to sleep mostly during the day. The past keeps me awake at night.’
‘Mine is beginning to,’ Elsa said. She took a seat near him. ‘Where’s Marion?’
‘She and Robert still like to romp. I thought they’d have gotten over it by now, but they haven’t.’
‘It doesn’t seem the hour for romping, Uncle Edward.’
‘You never know with those two.’ He spoke in a feeling voice. ‘Do you hate me, Elsa?’
‘Why would I hate you, Uncle Edward?’
‘I can think of several reasons, one having to do with Robert and you. I never should have let that happen.’
‘What happened, happened,’ Elsa said with a painful memory of staring into Robert’s eyes with monstrous innocence and total infatuation. ‘As much my fault as anybody’s.’
‘But Marion and I should’ve looked after you. We owed it to you.’
‘What you owe me now, Uncle Edward, is an accounting. I’ve chosen a lawyer. I went through the Yellow Pages of the Haverhill directory and a name jumped out. Mooradian.’
‘Michael Mooradian?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your father went to high school with him. A good man, a good lawyer.’
‘That might not be good for you, Uncle Edward.’
He closed his eyes. ‘I’ve handled cancer and a stroke. I guess I can handle this.’
Elsa rose and rearranged the strap on her shoulder bag.
She stood, stylish and a bit formidable in a gray suit, the jacket fitted, the skirt narrow.
Her uncle opened his eyes. ‘This may be hard for you to believe,’ he said, ‘but I love you.’
‘I love you too, Uncle Edward.’ She leaned over and kissed his brow. ‘Good luck.’
Elsa, sitting on a bench facing Park Street, glimpsed a familiar figure and said to herself, ‘Why am I not surprised?’
Moments later Sally West entered the Common, proceeded up the pathway, and, tilting her head, broke out in a smile. ‘Elsa! What a crazy coincidence!’
After an embrace, Elsa made room on the bench. She felt she knew the answer but asked anyway, ‘What are you doing in Boston?’
‘I come in once a month to see my doctor. Then, if the weather’s nice, I kill time in the Common before catching the train back to Haverhill. What are you doing here?’
‘Usually I’m not. At least not at this time of day. The last time I was sitting on this bench I saw my uncle conducting the Boston Symphony.’
‘Edward?’
Elsa smiled. ‘It was in a dream. Do you repeat your dreams to your doctor? Yes, I think you told me you did.’
Sally crossed her legs. ‘I stopped doing that a long time ago. It’s always the same sort of dream.’
‘Did my father suffer?’
‘
He didn’t have time.’
‘Thank God for something.’
Sally skewed her head and looked at Elsa full in the face, her voice almost a child’s. ‘Is God good?’
Elsa shrugged, with a glance at her watch. ‘I’m sure he has his faults. We all do.’
‘I want to believe in something. There must be something.’
‘Believe in yourself, Sally. It’s worth a try.’
‘Where are you going?’
Elsa was on her feet. Gripping the strap of her shoulder bag she said, ‘I have an unscheduled appointment.’
Staring up at the length of her Sally said, ‘You look so smart, Elsa. You look so . . . so Boston.’
‘I think I’d rather look Haverhill.’
‘Then it wouldn’t be you.’ Sally’s voice reached out as Elsa stepped away. ‘Will we stay in touch?’
‘That’s a promise,’ Elsa said over her shoulder.
‘Do you mean it?’
Elsa’s stride was swift and she may not have heard.
Edward went to his bedroom with a terrible weariness and fell into a troubled sleep. An hour later Marion entered hers, followed by Robert. Tall twin windows looked out on spruce and hemlock.
Marion said, ‘He’ll sleep till midnight, then stay up most of the night.’
‘Poor bugger,’ Robert said, shedding his suit jacket.
‘He’s happy, darling. He has his money and he has me.’
Robert unknotted his tie, regimental, from Brooks Brothers. Contacts had long ago replaced his eyeglasses. ‘What if he had to choose?’
‘It would be a close call.’ Marion reached down and loosened a pump by its heel. ‘But he’d choose me, of course.’
Robert’s fine English shoes were placed side by side, like soldiers. Marion’s pumps, which she had kicked away, lay one way and another, as if estranged. Robert shed his suit, his shirt and his underwear, and drew a smile from Marion.
‘You should keep your clothes on. You no longer look distinguished. But I love watching you spring to life.’
‘You keep me on my toes, Marion.’
‘I hope so.’ She drew off taupe panty hose and displayed buttocks as shiny as if they had been buffed. Freed, her breasts took on a life of their own. A hand on her hip, she said, ‘Well?’
‘You’ll do fine.’
Each looked forward to the bed. Marion viewed the sexual act as two bodies in exquisite trauma. Robert said it was a debate turned violent over who was giving the most, orgasms at stake, reputations on the line.
‘How about me?’ he asked, both hands on his hips.
‘Pick of the litter, Robert.’
Each had no complaints, for each invariably performed with accuracies that left the other with no letdowns. Each in intensely immodest ways made the other feel valuable, and each in oblique ways loved the other.
Robert moved toward the lamp. ‘Leave it on or turn it off?’
‘Up to you.’
‘Does that make me boss?’
‘If you like to think so.’ In bed, under lamplight, she stretched her legs. ‘What would you do without me, Robert?’
‘Die?’
She paused for a second. ‘You don’t have to go that far.’
Dr Wall was squeezing her in, as she and his secretary had known he would. The secretary said to her, ‘I love your outfit.’
‘Thank you.’
Smiles were exchanged. ‘You can go in now.’
In Dr Wall’s office, she stared at the picture of his youngest daughter and said, ‘Is that me?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Sorry. A crazy idea was running through my head. It happens.’
‘True,’ Dr Wall said. ‘It happens to all of us.’
Sitting straight, she pictured him with his clothes off, a little man strutting like a rooster. She imagined it wouldn’t take much to make him cock-a-doodle-do.
‘Why are you smiling?’ he asked.
‘Am I? Sorry. My father’s widow is your patient. Why didn’t you ever mention it?’
‘Not my place. And it wouldn’t have been proper.’
‘Who recommended you to her? Was it Robert? My uncle? Or was it both?’
‘Please, Elsa.’
‘I hope you’re helping her. She’s been hurt much too cruelly. Of course, many of us suffer fates we don’t deserve. God’s way of showing us who’s boss.’
Dr Wall’s eyes were feasting on her. ‘You’re looking especially attractive today, Elsa.’
‘You’re not listening to me, Doctor. Any moment now, you might turn a little foolish. I hope not.’
Dr Wall envisioned her standing nude with a hand limply on her hip. Modigliani would have cherished her on canvas and stretched her neck. Dr Wall said, ‘I’ll try to control myself.’
‘I have another story idea. Late at night a man is snacking at the kitchen table when his wife creeps from the bedroom and plunges a butcher knife into his back. Somehow he finds the strength to call 911, which saves his life, but he is never the same afterwards, neither physically nor mentally. The lesson is you never know anyone’s true mental state, not even your own.’
‘The human psyche, Elsa, is the least peaceful place in the universe, but I’m not telling you anything new, am I?’
‘No, and you’re staring at me in that foolish way again.’
He saw her as Dietrich’s Lola in Blue Angel and himself as an actor mouthing scripted lines. He couldn’t help himself.
‘I love you, Elsa.’
‘It’s the second time you’ve told me. Once was enough.’
He didn’t want this. He wanted Plato’s cave, his face to the wall. ‘More than enough. I’m sorry.’
‘I came to tell you this is my last visit. I’ve had enough of this country. America is cattle herded into an abattoir for the benefit of McDonald’s and Burger King. It’s a storm trooper executing my father. It’s a country where der Tod das Leben schandet.’
‘I’m sorry, Elsa. I’m not sure I know what that means.’
‘Death mocks life,’ she said.
She was on her feet. He shot to his, his voice wavering. ‘I don’t want to lose you.’
Elsa spoke from the door. ‘Remember what you told me about my father? You can’t lose what you never had.’
Edward West dreamed of his mother, Milly, who, with a frayed voice, led him to the potty. Constipated, he produced only a few hard pennies. He couldn’t remember his father’s name and started to cry. ‘Hank,’ his mother told him. ‘It’s Hank.’
He was sorry the dream ended and more sorry he was lying awake and alone, with the small hours looming ahead of him. Rising, he pushed his feet into leather slippers and reached for the robe he thought he had discarded at the rehab center. The nightlight hurt his eyes. Depressed, he avoided looking at himself in the dresser mirror. A light burned in Marion’s room, but the room was vacant.
He shuffled down the stairs and saw Marion poised, barelegged, in an outsize T-shirt, one of his, near the front door. The door clicked.
‘Who was that?’
‘Robert,’ she said. ‘He was just leaving.’
‘Damn you!’ he said.
She viewed him with disgust. ‘Time you grew up,’ she said and turned away.
He followed her down the hall. ‘I won’t put up with it any more. I want you to end it.’ He was talking to the swing of her hips, to the hard flash of her legs and the balls of her feet. ‘Do you hear me?’
In the kitchen she turned on him. ‘Who are you to dictate to me?’
‘I’m your husband.’ He struggled to keep his voice strong and his robe from falling open.
Marion poured herself a small glass of water and drank it down. ‘Robert and I share something you’ll never understand.’
‘Try me.’
‘It’s in the blood. Beyond that, I don’t want to hurt your feelings.’
‘It’s never stopped you before.’
She hesitated. Did she really want to
bare differences between him and Robert? Would he even understand? Robert was over-the-calf hose. Edward was ankle socks dribbling into his shoes. ‘Go to bed,’ she said. ‘I am.’
Left alone, he felt devalued, a major portion of him looted. He missed his mother, his father, his brother. Jack! Where are you?
He shuffled from the kitchen and paused at the hall mirror, his robe flopping apart. Not a pleasing picture.
The climb up the stairs winded him.
‘Where are you?’
A foot on the closed toilet seat, she was clipping her toenails. ‘Stay out.’
An order he obeyed. ‘Robert’s a crook,’ he declared.
She laughed. ‘So are you. We all are, Tiger.’
‘Don’t call me that!’ He trembled. ‘I keep perfect records. I could bury him.’
‘He’d crush you like a bug.’ She began work on the other foot. ‘Face it, Tiger, you were never your brother, and you’re certainly not Robert.’
Edward stepped forward and saw her from behind, an unholy view, arse and thighs cut smooth. God, he loved her! ‘What am I, then?’
‘A nobody.’
‘What?’ His robe had reopened.
She knew he was behind her but didn’t bother to look up. A razor passed so smoothly across her throat that she had no idea she’d been murdered.
AFTERWORD
A tabloid dubbed Edward a vampire because he had licked blood from the murder weapon. Attorney Michael Mooradian said his client had no clear memory of events and was undergoing psychological evaluation at Bridgewater State Hospital where, at his niece’s request, he was under a suicide watch. Edward lay on a cot with a charged air of anticipation, as if his brain were a chrysalis in which his very first thought was stirring.
‘I’m going home, Sally. Please come with me.’
‘Where’s home?’
‘Germany.’
‘I have a home.’
‘But not a life.’
‘Why are you doing this? I’d just get in your way.’
‘No, you wouldn’t. And it’s what my father would’ve wished.’
Sally wavered. ‘What about Edward?’
‘My uncle? What more can I do for him? Tell me and I’ll do it.’
Sally looked away. ‘What about Robert?’
‘He’ll survive, believe me,’ Elsa said.